Stateside moviegoers smashed box-office records as audiences flocked to the movies to view a number of high-profile offerings released over the Christmas weekend.
Early estimates show weekend box office takings of $278 million, breaking the July 2008's record ofnjust over $250 million set with the release of "The Dark Knight".
The films appealled to just about every audience taste: James Cameron's "Avatar" pushed strongly into its second week while "Sherlock Holmes," "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel" and "It's Complicated" all opened their doors.
Top of course was "Avatar," the 3-D epic, pulling in $75 million according to 20th Century Fox, early estimates. This was on top of it's opening weekend total of $77.4 million, giving the movie $212 million domestically in ten days and looking to be on target to pull in excess of $1 billion.
Guy Ritchie's "Sherlock Holmes," starring Robert Downey Jr. as Arthur Conan Doyle's detective. The Warner Bros. film grossed a weekend total of $65.4 million. Watch out for the sequels.
"Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel," took $50.2 million on the weekend grossing $77.1 million in its five days of release. The film, also from Fox, earned an impressive $18.8 on Wednesday alone making it a very lucrative Christmas seek for the movie giants..
Nancy Meyer's "It's Complicated," the romantic comedy from starring Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin. Although producing a quiter entrance the Universal film took a tidy $22.1 million, from a mainly female audience.
The bouyant Christmas weekend raised expectations for the New Year weekend, tradditionally one of the most lucrative of the year.
Two films with an eye on Oscar also release worldwide this weekend: Jason Reitman's "Up in the Air" (Paramount) and Rob Marshall's "Nine" (Weinstein Co.).
In it limited release "Up in the Air," grossed $11.8 million, bringing its cumulative total to $24.5 million, while Nine," the adaptation of a Broadway musical itself was a riff of Federico Fellini's classic film "8 1/2" earned $5.5 million from only 1408 theatre releases..
2009 still has several days to go, but the year is already a record for both domestic and worldwide ticket sales with more than $10 billion at the U.S. box office alone, already almost half a billion dollars ahead of the 2007 record year.
While some of the credit has to go the recession (movies historically do well in hard times when a trip to the movie theater is a relatively cheap form of entertainment and escapism), there was a feeling Sunday that Hollywood have produced better offerings this Christmas. with a range that included science-fiction, romantic comedy, family fare, action-packed thriller and serious award contender. In other words something for everyone.
Top Ten Box office results
Estimated ticket sales for Dec. 25-27
1. Avatar - $75 million.
2. Sherlock Holmes - $65.4 million.
3. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel - $50.2 million.
4. It's Complicated - $22.1 million.
5. Up in the Air - $11.8 million.
6. The Blind Side - $11.7 million.
7. The Princess and the Frog - $8.7 million.
8. Nine = $5.5 million.
9. Did You Hear About the Morgans? - $5 million.
10.Invictus - $4.4 million.
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